“The occupant forgot it was lit. She left the home to pick someone up from work, came home and saw all the firetrucks in front of the house,” Fall River Fire Capt. Neil Furtado said.

A few minutes after midnight, firefighters responded to 186 Division St., for a report of a fire in the triple-decker’s second-floor apartment. When they opened a bedroom door, the firefighters were hit with a thick wall of smoke and fire.

“They had zero visibility,” Furtado said.

Firefighters still managed to extinguish the fire before it spread beyond the bedroom. Furtado said the occupants in the first and third-floor apartments did not have to vacate the three-family house.

Investigators later determined that the votive candle — which the tenant had lit in memory of a deceased relative — tipped over and ignited wood paneling sometime after the tenant left the apartment, Furtado said.